GPU giant NVIDIA is betting the future of the company on its GF100 graphics chips using the new Fermi architecture. The new chips started mass production last month, and are expected to be used in new video cards that will be launched around the end of February.

There still aren't a lot of specific details about the video cards that will use the new chips, but the company has just released information about the names of the first cards to use GF100 chips.

The GeForce GTX 480 will be the high end video card using the highest clocked speeds, while the GeForce GTX 470 will be a more affordable card with lower core and memory timings. Several defective CUDA cores are likely to be disabled in the GTX 470, which is going to be a big production problem for NVIDIA due to the large die size of the GF100.

NVIDIA seems to be almost entirely skipping the 300-series, with only the GeForce 310 occupying the space. That card is an OEM-only rebadge of the GeForce 210, a low-end DirectX 10.1 part.